Sunday, June 10, 2012

The Other People You Love To Hate

..."Phone carriers aren't trying to gain consumers through quality service," says Parul Desai, the communications policy counsel for Consumers Union. No phone company "says we'll take care of this; we'll come right over and fix it."

They have no reason to: Their mandatory arbitration clauses make it all but impossible for disgruntled customers to sue them, and their early termination fees lock those customers into their contracts. In a 2009 Government Accountability Office survey mobile phone users said they wouldn't switch carriers because of those fees. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) introduced a bill that year that would have limited those charges, but it didn't go anyplace...